How not to run an AD, and links

It's not a news flash that some people on TI aren't fans of Clemson president James Barker and some of his initiatives.

The pros and cons of Barker's tenure can be reasonably debated. But the presence of Michael Adams down the road at Georgia shows that things could be a lot worse.

Adams is on the way out, and most Georgia fans are celebrating. The mere fact that sports fans know enough about a president to be reacting so strongly to his departure provides a pretty good argument by itself that he was too involved in athletics.

Off the top of my head I can't think of another president who took such an interest in his athletics department. Soon after taking office in 1997 he orchestrated a secret buyout with football coach Jim Donnan. Is this not bizarre?

If an athletics department is full of scandal and impropriety, a president can justifiably step in and exert his influence. In Adams' case, he stepped in and introduced scandal and impropriety when he told Vince Dooley to hire his buddy Jim Harrick. A shady coach continued to do shady things, and before long Harrick's son was perpetuating academic fraud by teaching sham courses.

Adams told Dooley to fire Donnan after the 2000 season over Dooley's objections, and that worked out well because Dooley hired Mark Richt as Donnan's replacement and the Dawgs went on to do great things. But it still feels weird, even in light of the success under Richt, that Adams was the one calling the shots.

He also was bound and determined to run off Dooley, a Georgia legend who had no business being run off. And the guy he chose as Dooley's replacement, Damon Evans, had to be run off after an embarrassing underwear incident you might remember.

Adams has done great things for the university as a whole. But if the argument is confined to what he's done for the athletics department, it's hard to escape the conclusion that he's Jerry Jones Jr.

What ever happened to the concept of letting people do the jobs they were hired to do?

A few Monday links:

-- Wonder how Georgia taxpayers like the thought of paying for Adams' golden parachute?

-- Clemson and Georgia have upped their exit fee for the 2014 and 2015 home-and-home to $3 million from $500,000.

-- Speaking of presidents, Ohio State's is quite the world traveler.

-- And here's a Q&A with the Big 12's new commissioner.

On possible future Big 12 expansion:

"Expansion will be an ongoing consideration for us. I haven’t had the opportunity to talk with all of the presidents about this issue, and I haven’t had the opportunity to talk to all but a couple of the athletic directors. I certainly am not going to presume a direction that we will go. I think, though, as you consider expansion, it has to be expansion that has, as its roots, the enhancement of the league. There’s nothing magic about 11, 12 or 10."

LW